SC - RE: Period cookshop at Pennsic?

[RANDALL DIAMOND]

The question is asked:  >>>What is the volume
 you can expect from such a rotisserie? You can 
only cook how many chickens at once. And if 
you serve half-chickens how many is this? Even 
if you can cook 12 chickens at once, giving 24 
servings, they take a while to cook. I don't think 
this is feasible, although the idea is nice.<<<

The way the large numbers of chickens/ whatever
to cook for large numbers of people is being handled
in a very different way at Glaedenfeld Centre. We are
building a Scandinavian late period smokehouse (at
least the folks who designed it say it is period, I haven't
seen the docs on it yet) to cook as many as we need.
The fellow who came up with this builds period saunas
and happened to mention that they used similar structures
for cooking.  I jumped on him for details rather quickly.
The one we are considering (after I ok it as reasonably
period) will have two chambers each about the size of
one of the HC access port-o-johns.  One will be for slow
smoke foods like hams, sausages, traditional smokehouse
stuff.  The other will be running much hotter and will have
hanging racks/ spits for lots and lots of birds and pierced
racks for things like whole trout or salmon.  A drip pan will 
cover most of the tile floor.  This would cook exactly like the
yuppified smokers you can get at any Gaulmart.
I think that this kind of setup at Pennsic would be ideal.
With spit roasting you often get dry meat on the outside
and half cooked on the inside when you are dealing with
any quantities due to the unevenness of the heat.  The
wet heat of the smoke will cook very evenly and when one is
done, they all are.  You should be able to cook 200 or more 
birds in one of these at a time without the problems of
an open flame and having to turn everything constantly.
It works largely like a convection oven with smoke added.
If you are cooking all the same fowl, you should have a 
drip pan full of fats and juices for seasoning/ flavouring
rice or something as well.   I think this method of cooking 
would be extremely suited for Pennsic type cooking.  Using
apple or pear wood would make some yummy birds and it
is mundane enough (but period) to appeal to most folks.

Akim Yaroslavich
"No glory comes without pain"